Jose Carillo's Forum

YOU ASKED ME THIS QUESTION

Jose Carillo’s English Forum invites members to post their grammar and usage questions directly on the Forum's discussion boards. They may also e-mail their questions directly to me. Either way, I will make an effort to reply to every question individually and post the reply here or elsewhere in the Forum depending on the subject matter.

Can the past perfect be used to describe a single past event?

Question by innocentmalik3, new Forum member (June 4, 2011):

Hi, guys,

As I know, the past perfect form is used when you describe two past events in different time order. Can I use the past perfect to describe a single past event? On the other hand, can I use the simple past form in this sentence, “I lived in the US for three years,” provided that I no longer live in the US afterwards? I’m having problems determining the difference between these two forms.

I’ll wait for your answers. Thanks.

My reply to innocentmalik3:

Yes, the past perfect tense can be used to describe a single past event. This is when the time or period of occurrence of that particular event isn’t specified, as in this sentence “She had taken the bar examination.” Of course, when the precise time or period of occurrence of that event is specified, say last year, the simple past tense is used: “She took the bar examination last year.” 

Is the use of the simple past tense in this sentence correct: “I lived in the US for three years”? Yes, it’s correct provided that that person had not continued to reside in the US at any time afterwards. 

If that person continued to live in the US afterwards and moved out of the US to live elsewhere at some unspecified time or period afterwards, the past perfect tense is used to declare that fact: “I had lived in the US for three years.” 

On the other hand, if that person continued to live in the US afterwards and lived elsewhere at some specified time or period afterwards, say in Germany for two years prior to the time of speaking, the past perfect tense is also used, but this time in tandem with the simple past tense for the latter action: “I had lived in the US for three years until I moved to Germany two years ago.”

Of course, if that person continued to live in the US uninterrupted from that time onwards until the time of speaking, say for a total of five years now, the present perfect progressive tense is used: “I have been livingin the US for five years now.”

I hope this explanation clarifies the usage of the past perfect for you.

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How do we use the phrase “augurs well” in a sentence?

Question by ofie4domingo, new Forum member (June 7, 2011):

How do we use “augurs well” in a sentence? Is this use of the phrase “augurs well” right? : “The change in political leadership augurs well for the Executive Director who was awarded with two presidential citations for his excellent leadership and outstanding government service.”

My reply to ofie4domingo:

The intransitive verb “augur” means “to give promise of something” or “presage something,” so to “augur well” for somebody means to give promise of something good happening to that person. In this context, the use of the phrase “augurs well” in the following sentence that you presented is correct both grammatically and semantically: “The change in political leadership augurs well for the Executive Director, who was awarded with two presidential citations for his excellent leadership and outstanding government service.”

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Which is correct, “cost of” or “cost for filing an application”?

Question by Mr. K, new Forum member (June 5, 2011):

Dear Mr. Carillo,
 
1. Which is correct, “cost of filing an application,” or “cost for filing an application”? I’ve always written “cost of,” but my boss invariably corrects me. I’ve Googled “cost for” and found about a million hits (the examples include sentences such as “Microsoft drops cost for blackberry hosted email”)?

2. Also, which is correct, “This elevator stops at/on every floor”?

3. According to a book I’m reading, “Each team was allotted fifteen minutes to come up with an original solution,” but “Management reserves the right to allot to each employee the work he or she is expected to do.” Why is a preposition not required in the first sentence? 

Thanks.

My reply to Mr. K:

1. Both “cost of filing an application” and “cost for filing an application” are correct usage, but they differ in terms of point of view. The “cost of filing an application” refers to the intrinsic amount charged for filing the application from the standpoint of the entity collecting it, as in “In our school, the cost of filing an application for library privileges is PhP500.” On the other hand, the “cost for filing an application refers to the filer’s out-of-pocket expense in filing the application, as in “To me, the cost for filing an application for library privileges is PhP500.”

2.  Both “this elevator stops at every floor” and “this elevator stops on every floor” are grammatically correct, and it would be difficult to explain a semantic distinction between the two usages. However, by convention, “this elevator stops at every floor” is much more widely used than “this elevator stops on every floor.”

3. Prepositions are used on a need basis depending on the phrasing of statements and the type of sentence construction. Note that the sentence “Each team was allotted fifteen minutes to come up with an original solution,” where the preposition “to” is used in the complement “to come up with an original solution,” is actually equivalent to the sentence “Fifteen minutes was allotted to each team to come up with an original solution,” where the preposition “to” is used to link the object of the preposition, “each team.” (This latter sentence can even get rid of the preposition in this elliptical construction, “Fifteen minutes was allotted each team to come up with an original solution.”) What this means is that the English language allows for flexibility in the usage of prepositions, in keeping with their grammatical role as clarifiers of the meaning of statements.

The thing to remember is that functionally, prepositions are tacked on to a noun phrase so it can be properly modified or elaborated on when forming a sentence. In particular, in your second sentence, “Management reserves the right to allot to each employee the work he or she is expected to do,” the preposition “to” is actually part of the infinitive phrase “to allot to each employee the work he or she is expected to do,” which serves as object complement of the sentence. Strictly speaking, therefore, "to" in that sentence is not working as a preposition but as an integral part of the infinitive "to allot," which is actually a noun form.

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What is the correct usage of “already” and “being”?

Question by dexterology, new Forum member (June 6, 2011):

I would like to ask the following questions:

1. Is it correct that “already” should only be used when something is done earlier than the scheduled deadline?
2. I am confused with the correct usage of “being.” What I know is that “being” should only be used in tandem with human or anything related to human; for examples, “ Robin, being the youngest, should be allowed to stay at home” and “The PAWS, being the highest monitoring body on issues related to animal welfare, conducts a seminar on ‘Animal Welfare.’”

Is the second statement correct?

My reply to dexterology:

The adverb “already” is used not only when something is done earlier than a scheduled deadline. Another denotation of “already” is “by this time,” as in “There’s no need to preach to them because they are already converts”; no deadline is involved in that statement. A third denotation of “already” is as an intensifier of a statement, as in “Enough already, I told her last night.”

Regarding the word “being,” it actually functions in three ways: as a noun, as an adjective, and as a conjunction. As a noun, “being” has several meanings that allow it to be used not just in tandem with humans or anything related to humans; it could also mean “the quality or state of having existence,” “essence,” or “personality” of any subject other than people, as in “The Philippines being archipelagic in character, it has a coastline twice longer than that of the continental United States.” As an adjective, “being” means “present,” as in “Please stay put in your job for the time being” (it’s an integral part of the adjective phrase “for the time being”). And as a conjunction, “being” means “since” or “because,” as in “They think of him as being a traitor to the nationalistic cause.”

This being the case, the second sentence you presented is grammatically correct: “The PAWS, being the highest monitoring body on issues related to animal welfare, conducts a seminar on ‘Animal Welfare.’” Here, “being” is being used in the sense of “because it is.”

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The strange grammar of “need” as modal auxiliary

Question sent by e-mail by Oscar P., a newspaper columnist in the Philippines (May 30, 2011):

Joe,

“1. Why is the third person form of the verb ‘need’ not in the present tense in the sentence ‘He need not pay to enter the sports arena’?

“2. What is the right noun form when ‘respective’ or ‘respectively’ is used with people’s names, as in the sentence ‘Gen. Cruz, Col. Santos, and Capt. Ocampo took their respective places (place) as befitting their rank’?”

My answers to Oscar’s questions:

Your first question is why the verb “need” in the sentence “He need not pay to enter the sports arena” isn’t in the third person, singular present-tense form “needs,” considering that the subject “he” is a pronoun in the third person singular. Indeed, this usage looks like a violation of the subject-verb agreement rule, which requires that when the subject of a sentence is singular (“he” in this case), the operative verb should also take the singular form (the present tense “needs”).

That sentence, though, actually doesn’t violate the subject-verb agreement rule. This is because the word “need” in that sentence works as a modal auxiliary, not as the intransitive verb that means “to be in want” or the transitive verb that means “to be in need of.” As a modal auxiliary, “need” is in the same functional category as “can,” “must,” “might,” and “may,” which as we know work in tandem with a verb to express a modal modification. We will recall that modals denote an action or state in some manner other than as simple fact, such as a wish, desire, conditionality, or probability, and that modals in English (unlike verbs) don’t have “-s” and “-ing” forms. This is why “need” doesn’t have the “s” in the modal sentence “He need not pay to enter the sports arena.”

The modal “need” is typically used in three grammatical situations: (1) in negative statements, as in “You need not go now”; (2) in questions, as in “Need he go now?” instead of “Does he have to go now”; and (3) in hypothetical statements, as in the modal sentence “I asked whether she need travel at night” instead of the nonmodal “I asked whether she needs to travel at night.” In your sentence, the modal “need” works with the adverb “not” to negate the statement, giving the sense of “not under necessity or obligation” to go now. 

The strange thing is that when used in the positive sense, the modal “need” grammatically malfunctions. The resulting sentence doesn’t sound right: “He need pay to enter the sports arena.” To make that sentence work properly, “need” should be used as a typical verb working with the infinitive “to pay,” as in “He needs to pay to enter the sports arena.”

Now, regarding your question about the adjective “respective” and the adverb “respectively”: These two words denote that two or more entities in a serial or enumerative list separately have a possession, property, or attribute of the same kind or class, as in the sentence you presented: “Gen. Cruz, Col. Santos, and Capt. Ocampo took their respective places as befitting their rank.” In such lists that use “respective,” the common possession, property, or attribute will always be a noun in the plural form modified by “respective,” as the noun “places” in your sentence.

An interesting corollary question is how to use the adverb “respectively” instead of the adjective “respective” for the same sentence you presented. This is the typical form the sentence will take: “As befitting their rank, Cruz, Santos, and Ocampo took their places as general, coronel, and captain, respectively.” Here, the adverb “respectively” modifies the entire enumerative sequence introduced by the common possession, property or attribute, which, as in the case of “places” in your sentence, will also be always plural in form.

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The usage of “keep you informed of” and “keep you informed on”

Question by Mr. K, new Forum member (May 26, 2011):

Sir, good evening!

Which is correct “Keep you informed of” or “keep you informed on”? If both are correct, when do you use one and when the other?

Thanks.

My reply to Mr. K.:

Both of these two verb phrases or phrasal verbs are correct: “keep you informed of” and “keep you informed on.”

“Keep you informed of” is used when the speaker is referring to a particular fact or event, as in “Your job is to keep us informed of the plans of our competitor” and “I’ll keep you informed of the results of the special election.” 

“I’ll keep you informed on” is used when the speaker is referring to information about an indefinite or nonspecific object, which is usually in the form of an indefinite pronoun, as in “I’ll keep you informed on this,” “I’ll keep you informed on that,” and “I’ll keep you informed on them.” This usage presumes that both the listener and the speaker know the antecedent subject of the indefinite pronoun being used; in other words, that antecedent subject was mentioned or made clear shortly before the “I’ll keep you informed on…” remark is made.

Another variant of these phrasal verbs using “informed” is “keep you informed about,” which is used when the reference is not to a particular, specific subject but to a general or broader subject, as in “He will keep you informed about computers” and “We will keep you informed about the reproductive health bill debates.”

Note that generally, “keep you informed about” can be used instead of “keep you informed of,” as in “Your job is to keep us informed about the plans of our competitor” and “I’ll keep you informed about the results of the special election.” However, it’s not the case the other way around—meaning that “keep you informed of” often doesn’t work properly as a substitute for “keep you informed about” statements. See and feel how awkward these sentences are: “He will keep you informed of computers” and “We will keep you informed of the reproductive health bill debates.”

So when you’re unsure, choose “keep you informed about” as default phrasal verb. It works practically in all cases, while “keep you informed of” is more specialized and works only in specific instances.

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Which verb phrase is correct, “keep you informed (of, on)?”

Question by Mr. K, new Forum member (May 26, 2011):

Sir, good evening.

Which is correct, “keep you informed of” or “keep you informed on”? If both are correct, when do you use one and when the other?

Thanks.

My reply to Mr. K:

Both of these two verb phrases or phrasal verbs are correct: “keep you informed of” and “keep you informed on.”

“Keep you informed of” is used when the speaker is referring to a particular fact or event, as in “Your job is to keep us informed of the plans of our competitor” and “I’ll keep you informed of the results of the special election.” 

“I’ll keep you informed on” is used when the speaker is referring to information about an indefinite or nonspecific object, which is usually in the form of an indefinite pronoun, as in “I’ll keep you informed on this,” “I’ll keep you informed on that,” and “I’ll keep you informed on them.” This usage presumes that both the listener and the speaker know the antecedent subject of the indefinite pronoun being used; in other words, that antecedent subject was mentioned or made clear shortly before the “I’ll keep you informed on…” remark is made.

Another variant of these phrasal verbs using “informed” is “keep you informed about,” which is used when the reference is not to a particular, specific subject but to a general or broader subject, as in “He will keep you informed about computers” and “We will keep you informed about the reproductive health bill debates.”

Note that generally, “keep you informed about” can be used instead of “keep you informed of,” as in “Your job is to keep us informed about the plans of our competitor” and “I’ll keep you informed about the results of the special election.” However, it’s not the case the other way around—meaning that “keep you informed of” often doesn’t work properly as a substitute for “keep you informed about” statements. See and feel how awkward these sentences are: “He will keep you informed of computers” and “We will keep you informed of the reproductive health bill debates.”    

So when you’re unsure, choose “keep you informed about” as default phrasal verb. It works practically in all cases, while “keep you informed of” is more specialized and works only in specific instances.

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When should compound modifiers be hyphenated?

Question by English Editor, new Forum member (May 27, 2011):

Good day, Sir.

Which of the following compound terms should be hyphenated and why? 

1. street dancing competition
2. public speaking contest
3. much-awaited event
4. fund raising activity

We at the office are quite “confused” as to when to hyphenate these. According to the Chicago Manual of Style, we hyphenate a compound term when it is used as an adjective before a noun (as in the case of number 3?) However, our “confusion” sets in when the term is composed of a noun and a gerund. We editors have different interpretations of the guidelines given by Chicago Manual of Style. I hope you can enlighten us on this.

Thank you very much.

My reply to English Editor:

All of the two-word compound modifiers of the four terms you presented need to be hyphenated. This is because the words in each of those word-pairs are not acting as individual modifiers but as a single adjective modifying the noun that follows them. In the interest of clarity, therefore, the four items you listed should all be written as follows:

1. street-dancing competition
2. public-speaking contest
3. much-awaited event
4. fund-raising activity

There really should be no cause for confusion when the compound modifier consists of a noun and a gerund. A gerund, after all, is a verb form that functions as a noun; indeed, in a word-pair like, say, “street dancing,” the word “dancing” is actually a gerund modified by the noun “street” functioning as an adjective. To make sure that this word-pair is clearly understood as acting as a single modifier of another noun, the convention in English is to hyphenate the word-pair, as in “street-dancing competition.” When the word-pair isn’t hyphenated in written form, as in “street dancing competition,” the modification becomes ambiguous. The word-pair “dancing competition” could conceivably be also understood as a compound term modified by the noun “street” acting as a adjective—a modification that gives rise to the absurd idea of “a dancing competition among streets.”

The two-word modifier in the term “much-awaited event” also needs to be hyphenated, but this time the reason for hyphenating is different—it is to make sure that the adverb “much” is clearly understood to be modifying the past participle “awaited” and not the compound term “awaited event.” We need to keep in mind that in such instances, the past participle functions as an adjective, and the convention in English is to hyphenate the pairing of such an adjective with an adverb right before it, as in “much-awaited event.” There’s an exception to this convention, though. When the adverb ends in “-ly,” like “keenly,” the hyphen becomes unnecessary, as in “keenly awaited event.” 

For a more comprehensive discussion of hyphenation, click this link to “Hyphenating for Clarity,” an essay of mine that I posted in the Forum in October of 2009.

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What is the correct way of using the anticipatory “there” clause?

Question by Sky (May 18, 2011):

Are native speakers of English correct when they say the following sentences?

1. “There’s only 5 classes on the second floor.”
2. “There’s many students not attending their classes.”
3. “There’s only 2 classes I got today.”

Maybe I am just not used to it? Maybe I missed out this lesson at school? I am really confused on this matter.

My reply to Sky:

Let’s look closely at the three sentences that have been causing you such confusion:

1. “There’s only five classes on the second floor.”
2. “There’s many students not attending their classes.”
3. “There’s only two classes I got today.”

(Note than for consistency of style in the Forum, I spelled out the numerals in your sentences.)

Those three sentences are using what’s called in English grammar as the anticipatory “there” clause, meaning that the clause is introduced by the expletive “there.” In such sentence constructions, “there” is placed up front in the sentence or clause to point to the notional subject, usually a noun phrase of indefinite character, to give it more weight or emphasis. (Similar to this construction, of course, are sentences that use the anticipatory “it” clause, where the notional subject that follows is a nominal clause, as in “It is hard to justify his lackluster sales performance.”)

Now, the conventional rule for sentences with an anticipatory “there” clause is that the verb after the expletive “there” should be singular or plural depending on whether the notional subject that follows is singular or plural, as in “There’s a fly in my soup” and “There are three flies in my soup.” However, when the subject consists of two or more nouns compounded by the conjunction “and,” there are divergent schools of thought on whether “there is” or “there are” should be used.

Some grammarians prescribe that “there is” should be used when the subject consists of two or more indefinite nouns in the singular form, as in “There is apple and orange in our orchard back home”; to them, it just doesn’t sound right to say “There are apple and orange in our orchard back home.” Then other grammarians prescribe that “there is” can be used even for a compound subject for as long as the component nouns are notionally singular together, as in “There is fame and fortune for young people who can sing exceedingly well.” They argue that to use “there are” in such situations would yield such an awkward-sounding sentence, “There are fame and fortune for young people who can sing exceedingly well.” I think you can very well see and feel the validity of the point of those grammarians. Indeed, the problem with anticipatory “there” clauses is that they often put grammar and notion in irreconcilable conflict.

Now, in the light of the discussions above, are the three anticipatory sentences you presented grammatically correct and acceptable?

My answer is a categorical “no.” Those sentences are flawed both grammatically and notionally, so the correct thing to do is to replace their anticipatory “there is” with “there are.” As you pointed out, though, some native English speakers do speak that way—colloquially using the anticipatory “there is” regardless of whether what follows is a singular or plural subject or a compounded one. A conceptual justification offered for this tendency is that in day-to-day speech, the mind is normally not on the alert on whether the subject that will follow in a statement about to be uttered will be singular or not, so the singular “there is” can justifiably be used as the default anticipatory phrase. This can’t validly justify the resulting subject-verb disagreement, though, so I think such colloquialisms don’t deserve emulation whether by native or nonnative English speakers.

By the way, there’s a quick and handy way to avoid the grammatical conundrum in the faulty “there is” sentences you presented: knock off the anticipatory “there is” form altogether and rewrite the sentence with a suitable linking verb or active verb or both, as follows:

1. “Only five classes are held on the second floor.”
2. “Many students are not attending their classes.”
3. “I got only two classes today.”

These three alternatives are much more grammar-savvy than the colloquial “there is” sentences that have been bothering you. Your English definitely will be much better off with them.

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Do conditional sentences backshift in reported speech?

Question posted as a private message by Pipes, Forum member (May 3, 2011):

Hi Joe: Ever since I became a member of your forum, I have become more conscious of my grammar. Thus, I would like to consult with you about this sentence that I myself wrote: ‘Some people said that we could have had claimed the crown had it not been for her answer.’ I am extremely doubtful of the tense of the verb in that reported-speech sentence. Verbs are simply my waterloo. Hope you could help me out with this.”

My reply to Pipes:

On close scrutiny, I find this reported-speech sentence of yours to be in the wrong tense: “Some people said that we could have had claimed the crown had it not been for her answer.”

The extra auxiliary verb “had” in “could have had claimed the crown” is superfluous. The correct past conditional form of that verb phrase is “could have claimed the crown,” so that sentence should read as follows: “Some people said that we could have claimed the crown had it not been for her answer.” This is because when “had” follows “could have,” it functions not as an auxiliary verb but as a transitive verb in the sense of “to acquire or obtain,” as in “We could have had breakfast had it not been for my early meeting with my boss.”  

I can see now why you got the tense wrong in your reported-tense sentence. You appear to have applied the normal sequence-of-tenses rule for reported speech, which prescribes that “when an utterance is in the form of reported speech and the reporting verb is in the past tense, the operative verb of that utterance generally backshifts one tense into the past.” This rule, however, applies only when directly quoted statements of simple fact are converted into reported speech, not when third-conditional statements are converted to reported speech like the one in your sentence. (This previous posting of mine in the Forum, “The proper way to construct sentences for reported speech,” should help clarify the usage of this rule for you.)

Instead, the applicable rule here is that specifically for third conditional sentences (no possibility). That sentence of yours falls under this type of sentence, which talks about a condition in the past that didn’t happen, thus making it impossible for a wished-for result to have happened. (which I explained in another previous posting in the Forum, “Do better than a calculated guess in handling conditional sentences.”) This type of sentence has the following structure: the “if” clause states the impossible past condition using the past perfect tense “had + past participle of the verb,” is followed by a comma, then followed by the impossible past result in the form “would have + past participle of the verb,” as in this example: “If I had saved enough money, I would have bought that house.”

Alternatively, of course, that sentence can be constructed as follows: “I would have bought that house if I had saved enough money.” Another equivalent form of “if” conditional sentences of this kind is this “had” construction: “I would have bought that house had I saved enough money,” a form that’s similar to the conditional statement in your reported-speech sentence.

Now, the rule is that a third conditional statement in a directly quoted utterance doesn’t backshift in tense when converted into reported speech. Let’s assume, for instance, that the example I gave in the preceding paragraph is this directly quoted utterance: “I would have bought that house had I saved enough money.” In reported speech, it would take this form: He said he would have bought that house had he saved enough money. The quoted utterance won’t backshift one tense to the form that your grammatically flawed sentence took: He said he would have had bought that house had he saved enough money.

In short, the tense of third-conditional statements in directly quoted statements doesn’t backshift at all in reported speech. Indeed, this type of conditional is impervious to the normal sequence-of-tenses rule for reported speech.

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What kinds of noun are “God,” “eternity,” and “ocean?”

Another question posted as a private message by Pipes, Forum member (May 6, 2011):

What kinds of noun are “God,” “eternity,” and “ocean”?

Isn’t “God” both a proper and common noun? “eternity” a common and abstract noun? And “ocean” a common noun? Hope you could enlighten me on this matter. I look forward to hearing from you.

My reply to Pipes:

The noun “god”—with the first letter in lower case—is a common noun and refers in general to “a being or object believed to have more than natural attributes and powers and to require human worship.” “God”—with the first letter capitalized—is a proper noun that refers to a specific supreme being worshipped by the faithful of a particular religion.

The words “eternity” and “ocean” are, of course, common nouns, although poets sometimes refer to them figuratively as living entities, making them proper nouns by capitalizing the first letter, as in “Eternity, I await your coming!” and “Oh, Ocean, you've been alternatively kind and cruel to us!”

Both “god” and “eternity” are abstract nouns, being nouns that denote a concept rather than a physically tangible being or thing; “ocean,” on the other hand, is a concrete noun because it has a physical existence that can be perceived by the senses.

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Where should we punctuate drop quotes in a sentence?

Question from Miss Mae, Forum member (April 14, 2011):

Dear Mr. Carillo,

I keep forgetting to ask you about where to place commas after a quote. I already understand where should it be when used to mark statements, but I'm not sure where to place them if they were not intended to introduce a quote. Sigh! I wish I could explain my query further, but I'm afraid I would just confuse you more. Please just take a look at this sentence: If I don’t “wake up,” I wouldn't have to bear with those. Should the punctuation mark be placed before the quotation mark or after it? But it is not really a statement…

Respectfully,
Miss Mae

My reply to Miss Mae:

To clearly understand how to handle quoted material in English, let’s take a close look at the sentence you presented:

If I don’t “wake up,” I wouldn’t have to bear with those.

The words you placed inside quotation marks in that sentence, “wake up,” is what’s called a drop quote or orphan quote. A drop quote or an orphan quote usually consists of one or a few words that the writer decides to enclose within quotation marks for any of these reasons:

(1) It’s an indication that the writer means something else other than the usual denotation of the word or phrase being used in that sentence; in other words, the writer intends a figurative rather than a literal meaning to that word or phrase. In the sentence you presented, for instance, the negative sense of the drop quote “wake up” may mean “not regaining consciousness” or “dying” after, say, a delicate surgical operation. In this case, that sentence can literally be stated as follows: “If I die, I wouldn’t have to bear with those.”
(2) It’s a quick summation in a few words of an idea, as in the drop quote “a wakeup call” in the sentence, “The sharp drop in his popularity rating was ‘a wakeup call’ for the politician to make himself more publicly visible.”
(3) It’s a capsule description in a few words of a concept, as in using the drop quote to describe a certain still unproven body of knowledge being presented in a dissertation, as in this sentence: “Critics disparagingly called the young cleric’s paper that attempted to rebut Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection as the “Theory of Unnatural Evolution.” 

Now, your question is: Considering that the drop quote is not really a complete statement, should the punctuation mark (the comma in this case) be placed before the closing quotation mark before or after it?

There are actually two prevailing styles with respect to the placement of the punctuation mark for drop quotes and for most quoted material for that matter. The first is the American English style, which is to place the punctuation (the comma in this case) inside the closing quotation mark, as was done in your example:

If I don’t “wake up,” I wouldn’t have to bear with those.

If the drop quote is found at the end of the sentence, the period will be placed inside the closing quotation mark, as follows:

I wouldn’t have to bear with those if I don’t “wake up.”

In British English, however, that comma is placed outside the closing quotation mark, as follows:

If I don’t “wake up”, I wouldn’t have to bear with those.

If the drop quote is found at the end of the sentence, the period will be placed outside the closing quotation mark, as follows:

I wouldn’t have to bear with those if I don’t “wake up”.

You’ll find a lively and instructive general discussion of the use of quotation marks by clicking this link to the Capital Community College’s Guide to Grammar and Writing. The important thing is to be clearly aware of whether you are using American English or British English, as there are distinct differences in how each of them handles not only punctuation but the kind of quotation marks used.

RELATED READING:
Lesson #13 – Dealing with Quotations and Attributions

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The strange case of the missing “on” in sentences using “agreed”

E-mail from I.H., a Filipina writer and teacher based in Hong Kong (April 11, 2011):

Hi Joe—This is for you to ponder at your leisure. For some time, being a constant listener to the BBC World Service here in HK, I keep hearing reports about agreements signed between countries, two parties, etc.
 
Somehow, it bothers me that the preposition “on” isn’t used in such sentences as “The two sides agreed a strategy…” or “The Democrats and Republicans agreed a plan to…”
 
Why is it that I always think it’s correct and it would sound better if the verb “agreed” in these cases were always followed by “on.”  I’m sure you can elucidate on this.

My reply to I.H.:

I’m not surprised by your discomfort over the absence of the preposition “on” in those BBC news reports using the verb “agreed.” This is because everyone who learned English in the American standard—including you and me, of course—will always think that in such sentences, “agreed” is an intransitive verb in the sense of “to come to terms.” As such, “agreed” can’t have a direct object to act on; it needs a preposition as a grammatical intermediary to the direct object (this direct object is what’s known in English grammar as the object of the preposition). In the two sentences you presented, that preposition will be “on,” so those two sentences will be constructed as follows in the American English standard: 

“The two sides agreed on a strategy…”
“The Democrats and Republicans agreed on a plan to…”

In British English, however, the verb “agree” is used transitively in the sense of “to settle on by common consent.”* This is why BBC, which as we know is the bastion of British TV broadcasting, doesn’t use “on” after “agreed” in sentences like those you presented. (I would think that most mass media in the United Kingdom don’t use “on” likewise in such instances.) The verb “agreed” being transitive in those sentences, they can have direct objects and act on them. In the first sentence, in particular, the direct object of the verb “agreed” is “strategy,” so the verb can act on it without need for the intermediary preposition “on”: “The two sidesagreed a strategy…” In the second sentence, the direct object of the verb “agreed” is the noun phrase “a plan to…”, so the verb can act on this noun phrase without need for the intermediary preposition “on”: “The Democrats and Republicans agreed a plan to…”   
 
It will take some doing, but you just have to get used to this odd-sounding usage while based in Hong Kong or when reading publications that use British English. To paraphrase the old-age adage, when in Britain, do as the British do.
-----------
*This is based on Definition 2 of “agree” by the Merriam-Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary:
agree “transitive verb 2 chiefly British: to settle on by common consent: ARRANGE  <I agreed rental terms with him — Eric Bennett>”

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Questions about word usage and grammar lessons learned

Questions sent by e-mail by Miss Mae, Forum member (April 4, 2011):

Dear Mr. Carillo,

We  lost our Internet connection over here for almost a week, so my grammatical queries had piled up ( in the “Reminders” slot of my cell phone, at least). Here they are:

1. “New adage” - Thanks to Messrs. Strunk & White, I have been warned against the phrase “old adage” in writing. But what if it “adage” is paired with the word “new,” as in “new adage”? Should I just take it as an old saying given a modern interpretation? That was from a column...

2. “Though” and “too” - Should there always be a comma before and after the words “though” and “too”? Some writers don’t seem to observe that.

3. “Either” and “neither” - Can they be written without their partners “or” and “nor”? What if I like to describe an idea in two sentences? Example: “He’s not exactly poor. He’s not entirely rich, either.” Of course, I could just write that as “He’s not exactly poor but he’s not entirely rich.” But I wonder if I can get away with what I would naturally prefer.

I've also listed the grammar lessons I learned from you last month. How I wish their number confirms that I am learning!

1. Turning verbs into nouns can make abstract statements more convincing; smoothen transition; mellow down statements; emphasize direct objects; and replace needless introductory remarks (“the fact that...”)
2. When a main verb is used together with a helping verb, it is the helping verb that takes the tense.
3. “None” is treated as singular when it means “not one” but plural when it means “not any.”
4. Indefinite clauses are marked with a pair of commas.
5. Dependent clauses must contain valid verbs and subjects in them.
6. “Motivate” is to people as “enhance” or “promote” is to attributes and virtues.
7. Perfect tenses are used to describe actions that were just completed or were still happening.

My reply to Miss Mae:

About your first three questions:

1. “New adage”

I don’t think Messrs. Strunk and White in The Elements of Style were entirely right in their warning against using the phrase “old adage.” If we follow the contemporary definition provided by my digital Merriam-Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary, the noun “adage” means “a saying often in metaphorical form that embodies a common observation.” An adage isn’t necessarily old then. Of course, it must have been in common use for some time, and many of them would be “old” from our normal reckoning, but some could, in fact, be of vintage fairly recent enough not to merit being considered “old.” So, an adage could be “new” or “newer” compared to the really old and time-worn ones, in which case “new adage” may not exactly be a contradiction of terms.

You asked: Should we just take “new adage” as an old saying given a modern interpretation? I don’t think so; that would be semantically off.  When we word an age-old adage in contemporary terms, it’s much better to say, “To paraphrase an age-old adage…” or “To state an age-old adage in contemporary terms…”   

2. “Though” and “too”

No, a comma isn’t always needed before and after the words “though” and “too”?

In the case of “though,” it’s obvious it isn’t needed when used as a conjunction in the sense of “in spite of the fact that,” as in “Though he likes to eat pineapples, he’s terrified of peeling one.” “He’s terrified of peeling pineapples though he likes to eat them.” As an adverb in the sense of “however” or “nevertheless,” however, “though” needs to be set off by a comma from a qualifying phrase that immediately follows it, as in this sentence: “She has always loved her younger sister though, even if the sibling rivalry between them is so strong.” We must keep in mind, though, that there’s no need for a comma before the adverb “though” in sentences of this form:  “She has always loved her younger sister though.”

In the case of the adverb “too” in the sense of “also” and “besides,” a comma isn’t needed in such sentence constructions as “They sold their summer cottage and their old sedan too.” But when “too” immediately follows the noun it modifies, it needs to be set off by a pair of commas: “They, too, were involved in the controversial transaction.”

3. “Either” and “neither” - Can they be written without their partners “or” and “nor”?

Yes, “either” and “neither” can be used without their partners “or” and “nor,” respectively.

The sentence you yourself provided is a good example of the use of “either” without its usual partner “or”: “He’s not exactly poor. He’s not entirely rich, either.” In such constructions, though, you need to knock off the comma before “either”: “He’s not exactly poor. He’s not entirely rich either.” This sentence is a more emphatic construction than this one that you proposed, “He’s not exactly poor but he’s not entirely rich,” but, yes, you can get away with the sentence construction that you naturally prefer. It’s all a matter of style and emphasis.

In the case of “neither,” it doesn’t always need its partner “nor,” as in these sentences: “She has not gone to Rome and neither have I.” “To fight or to surrender. Neither is palatable to the besieged dictator.” “Amy says she won’t join the picnic? Well, me neither.” (In fact, the “neither”-“nor” tandem is mandatory only in sentence constructions in this form: “Neither Amy nor myself will be joining the picnic.”)

As to the lessons you learned from the Forum last month, here are my comments:

1. Turning verbs into nouns can make abstract statements more convincing; smoothen transition; mellow down statements; emphasize direct objects; and replace needless introductory remarks (“the fact that...”)

Yes, but only in the contexts specified in my discussion of the subject. (“Turning verbs into nouns isn’t always bad for English prose,” March 12, 2011)

2. When a main verb is used together with a helping verb, it is the helping verb that takes the tense.

That’s absolutely right! (“A rather curious state of affairs in the grammar of “do”-questions,” December 11, 2010)

3. “None” is treated as singular when it means “not one” but plural when it means “not any.”

That’s absolutely right! (The pronoun “none” can mean either “not one” or “not any,” December 4, 2010)

4. Indefinite clauses are marked with a pair of commas.

I’m sure you meant “nondefining” or “nonessential” instead of “indefinite,” in which case your understanding is correct that they need to be set off by at least a comma (when the  nondefining clause is at the tail end of the sentence) or by a pair of commas (when the  nondefining clause is sandwiched inside the main clause). (“Guideposts for using ‘who,’ ‘that,’ and ‘which’ to link relative clauses,” April 2, 2011)

5. Dependent clauses must contain valid verbs and subjects in them.

That’s absolutely right! (“Guideposts for using ‘who,’ ‘that,’ and ‘which’ to link relative clauses,” April 2, 2011)

6. “Motivate” is to people as “enhance” or “promote” is to attributes and virtues.

Yes, but only in the contexts specified in my discussion of the subject. (“Was Manila’s anti-Reproductive Health Bill rally interfaith or ecumenical?”, March 26, 2011)

7. Perfect tenses are used to describe actions that were just completed or were still happening.

More accurately, the perfect tenses express an action or state completed at the time of speaking or at a time spoken of; if the action is still happening, the tense that will properly express it is the present progressive tense, not the perfect tense. (“How the perfect tenses situate events as they unfold in time,” February 20, 2011)

Based on this, Miss Mae, I think you’re doing beautifully in your grammar review.

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“Mail” being a mass noun, isn’t the plural word “emails” wrong?

E-mail from Forum member bance33 (March 27, 2011):

Hi Joe, I appreciate receiving your regular email for the English Forum. Thanks! I just want to comment on the widespread use of the word “emails.” Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe “mail” is a mass noun that shouldn’t have an s in its plural form.

My reply to bance33:

Being of the old English school like you, I was until recently a holdout for “e-mail” as a mass noun that shouldn’t have an “s” in its plural form. But seeing many respectable newspapers increasingly use the plural form “e-mails” (sometimes even without the hyphenation), I thought it was the better part of valor to capitulate to the popular usage. I don’t flinch anymore when using “e-mails” when referring to several pieces of the stuff, as in “The editor received 124 e-mails yesterday about the newspaper’s inaccurate reporting.” In the Internet realm, after all, it doesn’t sound right to look at e-mail in the same physical sense as snail-mail and then to write “The editor received 124 pieces of e-mail yesterday about the newspaper’s inaccurate reporting.” Indeed, using the word “pieces” to refer to letters in digital form now seems to me a semantic aggravation, so I must now concede that the plural “e-mails” does make that sentence crisper and more concise: “The editor received 124 e-mails yesterday about the newspaper’s inaccurate reporting.”

RELATED READING:
AP Stylebook finally changes “e-mail” to “email”

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How do we position the apostrophe-s when a noun gets in the way?

Question from Miss Mae, Forum member (October 12, 2010):

I’m currently keeping a blog about soap operas in the Philippines. In one of my entries, however, I caught myself confused how to attribute properly. How should it be done when there’s an apostrophe? Here’s my sentence: “During Jhun Dimaano’s burial (Kier Legaspi), the mother of Aries Abad (Matt Evans) prohibited Rosa (Empress Schuck) to accompany her mother, Cecille Dimaano (Mickey Ferriols), outside.” Is there any other way to go about it or should I just paraphrase?

My reply to Miss Mae (March 25, 2011):

Sorry for having overlooked this posting of yours, which I can see dates back to October 12 last year. It got buried by several subsequent postings in the “You Asked Me This Question” discussion board and I never got to read it. Thanks for calling my attention to it even if so belatedly.

As you will recall, the possessive form apostrophe-s (’s) is simply a concise form of the possessive form “object + of + subject possessing it.” The possessive phrase “Jhun Dimaano’s burial” is therefore just a shorter form of the longer phrase “the burial of Jhun Dimaano.”

Of course, I can see why you aren’t comfortable with the apostrophe-s form in the sentence you presented: “During Jhun Dimaano’s burial (Kier Legaspi), the mother of Aries Abad (Matt Evans) prohibited Rosa (Empress Schuck) to accompany her mother, Cecille Dimaano (Mickey Ferriols), outside.” The noun “burial” indeed gets in the way between the possessive form “Jhun Dimaano” and the parenthetical attribution to the actor playing the role, “Kier Legaspi,” such that “Kier Legaspi” appears to modify the noun “burial” and not the noun “Jhun Dimaano.” 

One seemingly quick grammatical fix is to move that role attribution ahead of the noun “burial,” as follows: “During Jhun Dimaano’s (Kier Legaspi’s) burial, the mother of Aries Abad (Matt Evans) prohibited Rosa…” It’s a very awkward fix, though, since it absurdly implies that the performer himself, “Kier Legaspi,” gets buried and not just the role he is playing.

The best way is to use the longer phrase form for that possessive apostrophe-s: “During the burial of Jhun Dimaano (Kier Legaspi), the mother of Aries Abad (Matt Evans) prohibited Rosa (Empress Schuck) to accompany her mother, Cecille Dimaano (Mickey Ferriols), outside.”

This time, both grammatically and semantically, it’s crystal clear who actually gets buried in that soap opera.

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Must we go back to the first noun to find the antecedent?

Question sent in by e-mail by Mr. Jim K. (March 15, 2011):

Jose,

Thank you for your article on antecedents in English, “To do perfect sentences, we need to identify antecedents properly.” I have searched and searched English grammar textbooks and the Internet concerning the "agreement in CASE" without much success. I have studied Bible Chronology for about 20 years now. My concern with grammar involves a long passage in the Book of Daniel Chapter 9:25-27, which I have broken down as follows:

And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off,
but not for himself;
and the people of the prince that shall come
shall destroy the city and the sanctuary;
and the end thereof shall be with a flood,
and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.
And he shall confirm the covenant
with many, for one week:
and in the midst of the week
he shall cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease,
and for the overspreading of abominations
he shall make it desolate,
even unto the consummation,
and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.

[Jim then classifies and charts in great detail the various grammar elements of the above passage]

It seems to be a matter of grammar by which we can determine who the "he" of verse 27 is:  Verse 26 speaks of (1) the Messiah (singular) and (2) the people (plural) of the prince. The "he" of verse 27 is not plural so cannot be speaking of the "people of the prince." "Of the prince" is a prepositional phrase of which the "prince" is the object. The antecedant of the pronoun "he" in verse 27 cannot not be the "prince," for it is the object of the prepositional phrase which acts as an adjective describing the "people."

Verse 26 has only two personal nouns to which the "he" of verse 27 can reference: The "Messiah," and the "people." They are both subjects within that lengthy sentence. The "prince" is the object of the prepositional phrase which describes the "people." The phrase acts as an adjective. Nouns within the phrase cannot be the subject of a sentence. The pronoun "he" in verse 27 can either be the "Messiah" or the "people." Since it is singular, it must be the "Messiah." 

[Jim then presents in great detail another view of the passage from a subject-verb standpoint]

Here are a few questions concerning the rule involving "agreement in case":
1. Some consider the one who confirms the covenant to be "the prince that shall come" since the prince is the nearest NOUN and agrees with Person and Number.

IS THERE ACTUALLY A RULE IN ENGLISH GRAMMAR THAT SAYS YOU MUST GO BACK TO THE FIRST NOUN TO FIND THE ANTECEDENT?

2. Where else can I find documentation (as a textbook) on the subject that shows "agreement in case"?

I would really appreciate any help you can give me in this matter. Edward Pusey has written a book on "Daniel, The Prophet" in which he says "[the prince had not been the subject of any former sentence]" (p.227).

Jim K.

My reply to Jim K.:

Dear Jim,

I’m afraid that I don’t have the competence to say with certainty who the doers of the action are in that apocalyptic passage from the Book of Daniel. This is actually the problem with nebulously written English text or English badly translated from the original foreign-language text; often, you really can’t figure out who does which to whom because the translator or writer of the original text had not bothered to make himself or herself clear enough.

By logic, all I can confidently ascertain is that the antecedent for the pronoun “he” in the line “And he shall confirm the covenant” is the noun “Messiah.” This, of course, is assuming that “the prince” is distinct from “Messiah”; you’d be the better judge of that. The noun “people,” which is in the plural forum, obviously can’t be the antecedent of the singular pronoun “he” in that passage, and this is regardless of whether “people” is the subject or just an object of a phrase (there's absolutely no rule in English grammar that specifies that an antecedent can only be a subject and never object of a preceding phrase). You are the Bible expert in this particular case, though, so I’m sure you can use these basic grammar observations to put two and two together in that passage.

Now, regarding this question of yours, “Is there actually a rule in English grammar that says you must go back to the first noun to find the antecedent?”, the answer is a categorical no. The proper basis for determining the antecedent is the sense and logic of the sentence or train of sentences in an exposition. No matter how many nouns may come between a pronoun and its antecedent, it is the evident meaning or the sense intended by the writer that prevails. In a badly constructed sentence or passage, of course, there are bound to be grammatical or structural mistakes, so it’s the responsibility of the editor of the publication to rectify them to make everything clear for the reader. The problem is when some scriptural text with defective grammar is reverentially considered grammar-perfect despite evidence to the contrary; people then spend an inordinate amount of time trying to guess the writer’s intent instead of making the simple grammar fix that could clarify things very quickly for everyone.

Sincerely,
Joe Carillo

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How much paraphrasing can a writer do to direct quotes?

Question sent by e-mail by Miss Mae (March 7, 2011):

Dear Mr. Carillo,

It's embarrassing, but I was only able to appreciate one of your grammar prescriptions today.

You have advised to keep the operative verb of a sentence as close as possible to the subject. I heeded that, but was not fully convinced. Why disrupt the flow of a writer's thoughts?

But as I was reading a news article today, I realized by myself how the distance of a subject to its action can disorient. My question is, how much right a writer has in paraphrasing direct quotes? I used to do it whenever I think the material would sound better. It didn't occur to me to reconsider since what I would do is for the good of the story.

I'm referring to this statement from the National Statistics Office: “The series of price hikes in gasoline and diesel nationwide, higher electricity and water rates and increased land transport fares in many regions including NCR [National Capital Region] also contributed to the uptrend.”

As you might say, the operative verb contributed is 21 words away from the subject price hikes. I would rather have it written as: “The series of price hikes also contributed to the uptrend, such as in gasoline and diesel, electricity and water rates, and land transport fares in many regions including NCR [National Capital Region].”

Am I right, Sir? In an exercise we did in college, I remember elongating a single sentence our professor asked us to turn into a headline. His threat to expel me if I continue doing that as well as your admonition for putting subjects and verbs close together made me observe your grammar prescription faithfully.

I hope you would answer my question.

Curious,
Miss Mae

My reply to Miss Mae:

A news reporter or feature writer obviously has to be judicious in reporting statements made by respondents or news sources, whether those statements are actually uttered by them (perhaps tape-recorded and transcribed afterwards)  or made in the form of press releases. When the statements are crystal clear, there’s actually no need for heavy paraphrase; all that needs to be done is simple transcription to the news or feature format. Of course, the story can be made more readable and interesting by presenting as direct quotes particularly telling or emphatic parts of the statement that happen to be grammar-perfect in every way. Of course, when a statement is too convoluted for comfort or is grammatically flawed, it has to be clarified through a suitable paraphrase and can no longer be presented nor passed off as a direct quote.

The big question, though, is how much paraphrasing should be done to a convoluted or grammatically faulty statement. There’s no easy general answer to this question, of course, for much will depend on the quality of the writing and the particular grammatical elements involved. 

But simply for illustrative purposes, let’s take the case of that particular statement you presented from a news story in The Manila Times. To put that statement in context, I have added the lead sentence and the sentence right before that statement:

Inflation in February shot up to a 10-month high and surpassed the Philippine central bank’s forecast for the month mostly because of costlier food and services…

Excluding selected food and energy items, core inflation picked up to 3.5 percent in February from 3.3 percent in January.

The series of price hikes in gasoline and diesel nationwide, higher electricity and water rates and increased land transport fares in many regions including NCR [National Capital Region] also contributed to the uptrend.

You pointed out that in the second sentence above, the operative verb “contributed” is 21 words away from the subject “price hikes.” Because of this, the readability of that sentence isn’t as good as it should be. Following the principle that for optimum sentence clarity, it’s best to make the operative verb as close as possible to its subject or doer of the action, you therefore suggested the following paraphrase for that sentence:

 “The series of price hikes also contributed to the uptrend, such as in gasoline and diesel, electricity and water rates, and land transport fares in many regions including NCR [National Capital Region].”

It’s a good try but I must say that it isn’t good enough. Your rewrite has indeed brought the verb “contributed” practically adjacent to the noun “price hikes” as doer of the action, but I don’t think it has improved the readability of that statement that much; on the contrary, it has introduced very significant distortions to the sense of the original sentence. The use of the enumerative phrase “such as” is particularly problematic because its antecedent noun is unclear; it can’t be “uptrend” and it can’t be “price hikes” either, so what we have here is nothing less than a dangling modifying phrase. This is like jumping from the frying pan to the fire, so to speak.

I think the following paraphrase clarifies the original sentence much better while scrupulously remaining faithful to its intended sense:

“Also contributing to the uptrend were the series of price hikes in gasoline and diesel nationwide, higher electricity and water rates, and increased land transport fares in many regions including the National Capital Region.”

Now see how this paraphrase blends so smoothly with the sentences that precede it in the passage:

Inflation in February shot up to a 10-month high and surpassed the Philippine central bank’s forecast for the month mostly because of costlier food and services…

Excluding selected food and energy items, core inflation picked up to 3.5 percent in February from 3.3 percent in January.

“Also contributing to the uptrend were the series of price hikes in gasoline and diesel nationwide, higher electricity and water rates, and increased land transport fares in many regions including the National Capital Region.”

This paraphrase uses the inverted sentence technique, where the operative verb (“contributing’) precedes the doers of the action (the long noun phrase preceded by the phrase “the series”). It’s a rather advanced composition strategy in English for handling subjects or doers of the action that are stated in a longwinded enumerative form, but it’s actually routinely used by experienced journalists as an effective continuity device for narratives.

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In a “when”-clause, different “or” elements need not be parallel

Question by browncomputer, new Forum member (February 21, 2011):

In this sentence, there is an underlined part. You will find alternatives for the underlined portions and choose the alternative that you think is best. If you think that the original version is best, choose NO CHANGE.

“Its forehead, for example, may wrinkle when the dog is confused or waiting for a signal from its owner.” 

(A) No Change
(B) confusing
(C) confused by some
(D) confused with

The correct answer is A but I thought it was D because i thought the parallelism with the preposition should be maintained. Thank you so much for helping me.

My reply to browncomputer:

The answer couldn’t be “(D) confused with”; it’s “(A) No change.” There’s really no rule requiring parallelism for grammatically different “or” elements in a “when”-clause. In this particular case, the first element is the adjective “confused,” while the other element, “waiting for a signal from its owner,” is a verb phrase in the progressive form”—elements that are mutually exclusive. If the preposition “with” is added to the phrase “the dog is confused,” the sentence would require an object of the preposition that isn’t there or isn‘t grammatically called for. We must keep in mind that in this particular subordinate clause construction; the idea in “the dog is confused” is complete in itself, independent of the idea in the “or” phrase that follows it, “waiting for a signal from its owner.” 

Perhaps the logic of this explanation would become clearer if we restate the original sentence this way: “Its forehead, for example, may wrinkle when the dog is confused or when the dog is waiting for a signal from its owner. Here, we have two mutually exclusive “when”-clauses, “when the dog is confused” and “when the dog is waiting for a signal from its owner.” Clearly, when these two clauses are compounded into “when the dog is confused or waiting for a signal from its owner,” there’s absolutely no room for the preposition “with” anywhere in that compound construction.

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Can “which” also be used to refer to persons and not just to things?

Question sent in by e-mail by Miss Mae, Forum member (February 22, 2011):

Dear Mr. Carillo,

Hi! I have just finished reading the 59th chapter of your third book, Give Your English the Winning Edge, and came upon this line: “...that hoary rule that limits [‘which’ and ‘who’] to inanimate nouns and personal nouns, respectively, doesn't necessarily apply.”

That took me by surprise because I have been strictly observing “which” for things and who for “persons.” I also do not put commas before and after a clause introduced by “who.” How can I tell when should I do that?

Thanking you in advance,
Miss Mae

My reply to Miss Mae:

Yes, it does seem surprising that “which” can also be used to refer to persons and not just to things, but this is precisely one of the functions of “which” that was discussed in that chapter of Give Your English the Winning Edge: as a reference word linking dependent clauses or phrases to their antecedent nouns, and doing so either as intermediate subjects or objects of those dependent clauses.

Here’s the example I gave of the relative pronoun “which” as subject of the dependent clause: “Voters have to decide which of the candidates can serve the national interest best.” Here, “which” works as a subordinating conjunction, serving as the subject of the dependent clause “which of the candidates can serve the national interest best” and as the object of the verb “decide” in the main clause “voters have to decide.”

The hoary convention, of course, is to use “who” in that sentence because the noun it refers to is “people,” but among native English speakers, to use “which” in that sentence is more idiomatic than saying it with “who,” as in this version: “Voters have to decide who among the candidates can serve the national interest best.” Both versions are grammatically correct, of course, but note that the “who” version requires adding the preposition “among,” which I must say just puts another grammatical wrinkle to the construction—a wrinkle that native English speakers would rather avoid for the sake of simplicity and ease of articulation. Indeed, for many English speakers, it’s oftentimes hard enough to choose between “who” and “which,” so why further complicate matters by having to choose between “among” and “between” as well? Obviously, the use of “which” instead of “who” in that sentence construction greatly simplifies matters for them.

As to your practice of not using a comma before and after a clause introduced by “who,” I must warn you that it’s not a grammatically correct practice at all. Before deciding on the use of that comma, you need to determine first whether the clause introduced by “who” is a defining (essential) clause or a nondefining (nonessential) clause.

A defining clause is, of course, one that the sentence can’t do without, as in this sentence: “The woman who discovered radium as a chemical element died from overexposure to its radiation.” In this sentence construction, the comma isn’t needed before the clause. The clause “who discovered radium as a chemical element” is a defining or essential element of the sentence, and dropping it would seriously alter the intended meaning of the sentence, as we can see in this version with the defining clause gone: “The woman died from overexposure to its radiation.” This time, the woman has become nondescript—just any woman for that matter.

On the other hand, a nondefining clause is one that the sentence can drop without distorting or ruining the meaning it needs to convey, as in this sentence: “Marie Curie, who discovered radium as a chemical element, died from leukemia due to overexposure to radiation.” See how that sentence can stand by itself even without that nondefining clause: “Marie Curie died from leukemia due to overexposure to radiation.” The comma before and after the clause are absolutely needed as grammatical markers to indicate that the clause is a nondefining or nonessential one.

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